Fashion designers and brands working with "indigenous artisans" has become a bit of a cliche. Everyone wants on the do-gooder bandwagon. But Mexican designer Carla Fernandez is driving that wagon with her eponymous fashion house out of Mexico City. She and her team work with indigenous artisans (really) all over Mexico, keeping their ancient weaving, embroidery, and leather work techniques alive and providing work for people in rural areas, so they don't have to leave for the city in search of ways to provide for their families.
Every piece Fernandez produces is a collaboration with an artisan.
"All of our work is about collaborations and how to transform tradition into contemporary art," Fernandez told me. "For me tradition is not static, and fashion doesn't have to be as as fast as it goes."
I met Fernandez earlier this year when she came to San Francisco's Heath Ceramics Boiler Room with my favorite kind of exhibition: the kind where you can appreciate art and shop for clothes.
If you missed her in San Francisco, you'll have another chance next month to meet Fernandez and buy her work in Los Angeles. You can be one of the first to shop her new fall/winter 2015 collection in at Red Desert (850 S Broadway #600) at an exhibition opening on Saturday September 12. RSVP for a public opening event on the 12th from 4pm until 7pm here—and the celebration will continue through the weekend, with an open house on Sunday from 10am to 6pm. The exhibition will run through September 28.
In addition to Fernandez's clothing, the show will also feature work by artists from Mexico’s emerging art scene, including photographer Graciela Iturbide, multimedia artist Pedro Reyes and sculptor Ramiro Chaves.
